The study of biblical texts by looking at the literary genres that form their backgrounds and contexts and usually relate to the historical circumstances as well.
An assessment of how particular, set literary structures (e.g. a hymn) function and the type of social setting where such literary forms would have originated in an effort better to perceive their intent.
as applied esp. to the Bible, the attempt to trace the provenance and assess the historicity of particular passages by a close analysis of their structural forms. The success of the method depends largely on the assumption that the same forms recur in nonbiblical literature (Cross, The Oxford Dictionary Of The Christian Church).
The study of the structure, content and function of literary or oral units. "Function" includes the Sitz im Leben, or "setting in life," in which these forms would have originated (for example, temple ritual, forensic argument).
(also called form critique) The analysis of literary units to discover the typical formal structures and patterns behind the present text in an attempt to recover the original sociological setting or "setting in life" (German Sitz im Leben) of that form of literature. See Part 2, Chapter 14.
Form criticism is a method of biblical criticism adopted as a means of analyzing the typical features of texts, especially their conventional forms or structures, in order to relate them to their sociological contexts.